5. Keyboard And Other Interface Elements

Since space is at a premium in a laptop with a 10.8" display, Averatec chose to use a slightly smaller keyboard. With an overall width of 10" (254mm), it is over an inch slimmer than a standard laptop keyboard. Consequently, the individual keys are slightly smaller as well: 17 mm instead of 19 mm. Those used to typing with ten fingers as well as people with larger digits will initially find themselves facing quite a challenge. This just takes some getting used to, though, and after an adaptation phase, should no longer be a problem. We were also pleased with the keyboard's action point, its stroke and its stability, although some may find that it clatters a little too much during typing for their taste.

The difference in size between the keys of a standard laptop keyboard (above) and those of a sublaptop (below) are clearly visible in this picture.

Not everyone will be as content with the integrated touchpad, though; it felt rather imprecise in terms of positioning. Also, several testers noted that the pad's border was too flat. While this may sound trivial, the result is that your finger may end up ineffectually trying to navigate the cursor from the depths of the wrist rest instead of the touchpad.

Very practical: The touchpad offers both vertical and a horizontal scrolling functionality.

We did, however, like the soft yet defined clicking point of the touchpad's two buttons.

This multimedia button launches the Windows Media Player.

There are a total of six LEDs on the front right hand side of the wrist rest, which are intended to keep the user informed of system status and activity. However, it only takes a few minutes of work on the laptop to realize that they may not be ideally placed, since the user's right hand blocks the view of the status LEDs. Hence, the user is unable to see when the battery status LED switches to orange, signaling a low battery.

These six LEDs are supposed to keep the user informed the system's status.

It is also the case that the flashing or glowing LEDs for disk activity, battery status, Caps Lock and Num Lock are extremely hard to make out in daylight, due to their low contrast.